4.29.2012

By 5:00 am Saturday morning, I was exhausted. I’d been awake
for almost 24 hours, laboring for about six. The nurse was optimistic. She said
I was reacting well to the Pitocin. We would surely have the baby before April
1. She went off duty at 7:00 am when I was about 5 cm dilated. She was our good
luck charm. When she left, things went downhill.

I asked for pain meds which they gave through an IV. Those meds sucked me into a fitful sleep. I couldn’t keep my head up, but I
could still feel the tug and pull of contractions through the soupy fog of a
darkened room where nurses and doctors came and went. They asked me questions,
but my responses were sluggish and confused. I eventually asked for the
epidural. I suppose this was my surrender. I didn’t want to hurt anymore. It
was so much work.

There were a couple of C-sections happening, so the anesthesiologists
couldn’t get to me for a while. When she did, she reminded me of one of my
students. I was still under the influence of the first pain meds. I tried to
play it straight, like the meds weren’t making me completely loopy. I was a drunk
trying to fake sobriety. I wasn’t convincing, but I followed her
instructions, at least I think I did.

The epidural froze me to my bed. I couldn’t move. My body was
asleep but I was wide-awake. I couldn’t stop shivering. My body tensed,
fighting the drugs that urged my muscles to relax. Finally, someone pulled a
blanket over me. I warmed up. I fell asleep. I was still only 5 cm dilated.

The doctor decided to break my water. She pulled out what
looked like a long chopstick. I think it was then she mentioned that in a
couple hours, if I still hadn’t progressed, we would need to go C-section. I
heard her, but I was still telling my body to open, urging the baby to drop, to let
me push her out.

I didn’t progress. It was almost April first, a day for
fools. The doctor said they’d prep me for surgery. The baby would be here
before midnight. Through exhaustion and the epidural, I struggled to accept
that there would be no pushing, no vaginal delivery.

My family arrived from Portland.
As I’d struggled through 24 hours of labor, they survived a harrowing flight
and arrived in LA before the baby. Through weary tears I told them we were having a C-section. They
told me it would be okay.

The epidural started to wear off. The pain of contractions
seeped back in. I told the nurses, but they were busy prepping me for surgery.
They replaced the meds, but the pain persisted and then they had to unhook my
IV to transport me.

As they rolled me to surgery I told them, “I’m not numb. I
can feel the contractions. I need you to know I’m not numb.”

4.27.2012

So, here's a first glimpse into how Kiara Harper came into our lives... The images are courtesy of David. You can check out more of his pictures on his photo blog.

She waited like we asked. I’d been counting the days to
spring break, checking items off my lengthy to-do list and on the last day of
school before spring break, four days before my due date, I shed my mucus plug
in a filthy faculty restroom. I looked in the bowl at the cloudy mess and
thought, well, maybe she is on her way early. Good. We are ready.

We thought we were ready.

I thought I was ready.

Apparently,
when they say you’re never ready, they speak truth.

I didn’t know what contractions felt like. Sure, there was
“tightening” around my abdomen, but I expected pain. I experienced a little
cramping, but less painful than the first day of my period. I had contractions,
but walked through them, breathed right through them. On Friday night,
three days before my due date, something felt different. I stood and walked
restlessly. The tightening started happening more frequently, and then there
was a trickle. A dirty brown liquid trickle. It was no gush, but it was enough
for us to call the hospital. It was enough for the nurse at labor and delivery
to tell us to come in.

In the car we started timing the tightening sensations. They
happened about every three minutes. That seemed too fast, but I was unconvinced
this was labor. Where was the pain?

We parked the car and walked to labor and delivery. A nurse
hooked me up to monitors and told me I'd just had a contraction. David watched
the monitor and told me contractions were coming every two to three minutes. The
nurse slid a bedpan under my hips so the doctor could see how far I’d dilated.
A woman in another room screamed through a contraction.

“Only two centimeters,” the doctor said, “And a lot of bloody
show so I can’t tell if the water’s broken.”

She took a look with the ultrasound. My fluid levels were
low. She admitted me. This was game time. This was actually going to happen.

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It was a full house that Friday night at Kaiser’s Labor and
Delivery. We settled into the last room. An IV was inserted, and I was still
able to walk around and keep breathing through the pain. I knew if I kept
moving it would help things along. David and I walked around the quiet halls.
Time took on new meaning. It was about 2:00 am when we settled in to try to get
some sleep.

It’s impossible to sleep through contractions coming every
two to three minutes.

I kept breathing, focusing, checking the monitors to see how
close together the contractions were coming. They started me on Pitocin to try
to move things along. I should have known then, things were not likely to go
the way I imagined.

4.21.2012

As this past March came to a close, I knew life would be changing with baby on the way and Overdue Apologies finished. I decided to take advantage of an opportunity to workshop my writing with Lidia Yuknavitch (whose memoir I wrote about in January) even though I would be overwhelmed by life with a newborn.

Kiara came into our lives before I could submit work, but in the past two weeks I've had the chance to send her work and in an email exchange she said of childbirth, "what a revision it is of all the chapters of your life."

In that one line, Lidia captured precisely how I'd been feeling since the moment Kiara arrived. She changed everything. I'm not sure who I am as a writer, or a woman, a teacher, a mother, a wife, a daughter, or sister. Everything has a new context. All is subject to revision.

I don't even know who I am as a blogger! Is this a mommy-blog, a craft-blog, a baby-blog? I don't know anymore, and although I've been writing Kiara's birth story, I'm not sure it belongs here. And with David starting his own Daddy blog, I'm not sure how much of my baby-girl I'll be posting, but she has arrived, and she has changed everything. We'll see if I figure any of this out come next blog post.